European Court rejects Malta’s ‘golden passport’ scheme
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The European Court of Justice has ruled that Malta must cease selling ‘golden passports’. Armin Cuyvers, Professor of European Law, says in ‘NRC’ newspaper that this is ‘an important and controversial step at a time when migration and citizenship are sensitive issues’.
By stopping the scheme, the EU is restricting the right of Member States to decide for themselves who they give citizenship to. Given Malta's clear profit model, where access to EU citizenship and thus to all other Member States was literally sold, this ruling is understandable. A report by Transparency International (2023) also shows how these golden passports were linked, among other things, to organised crime and the evasion of sanctions against Russia.
From a legal perspective, however, this ruling is a sensitive step forward in European integration in an area very closely linked to countries' sovereignty. Bulgaria and Cyprus have previously ceased ‘selling’ similar passports under pressure from the EU. Malta, however, was the last country in the EU still guilty of issuing these purely transactional passports. It insisted that naturalisation is a sovereign right of Member States and not subject to European law. However, the court ruled that selling citizenship amounts to ‘commercialisation of Union citizenship’ and is ‘incompatible with the conception of that fundamental status that stems from the Treaties.’
European law requires that an actual link exists between a person and the country issuing a passport. 'The Court has now ruled that a mere financial contribution is simply not enough for that. But it’s still unclear exactly how strong that link must be,' Cuyvers said.
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Read the full article in NRC (€, in Dutch)